Presidential Candidates on Cancer

[Sal Atticum]

Something I received recently from Lacne Armstrong.  Agreement to fight cancer if they are elected.

link.

Candidates include
Senator Hillary Clinton
Senator John Edwards
Governor Bill Richardson
Congressman Dennis Kucinich
Senator Sam Brownback
Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee

[JakeJZG]

Something I received recently from Lacne Armstrong.  Agreement to fight cancer if they are elected.

http://www.livestrong.org/site/c.khLXK1PxHmF/b.3256473/k.685C/Presidential_Cancer_Forum.htm?msource=eml0914pcfh5&auid=2994203

Candidates include
Senator Hillary Clinton
Senator John Edwards
Governor Bill Richardson
Congressman Dennis Kucinich
Senator Sam Brownback
Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee

Well, I'm not voting for any of them.  Cancer is not constitutionally something the Federal Government is allowed to get anywhere near.  It has absolutely no jurisdiction or legal ability to do so.

Obviously, these candidates have no idea what their role in office would be.

[Sal Atticum]

What if they want to put more money in the budget for cancer research?  Can they not do that?  What if Kennedy wanted to put money into the space program--could he not do that?

[JakeJZG]

I don't really see how congress could justify it given the constraints of the constitution.

I believe NASA is legal, but that's more complicated...and I have a paper to write!

[Sal Atticum]

You could write it on how cancer research is unconstitutional, and we could put it in CD ROM!

[JakeJZG]

You could write it on how cancer research is unconstitutional, and we could put it in CD ROM!

It is unconstitutional - at a Federal level!  I'm not saying that cancer shouldn't be funded - just that there is no constitutional provision that allows such spending to my knowledge.  Now, if there were some type of executive order, an executive agency there might be some manner in which it might be done...although one has to wonder if such an idea is really in the line of thought of our forefathers and their very successful idea of a Federalist Republic.  Perhaps the states should organize independant of the Federal government.  It wouldn't be setting any new precedent to be sure.

Now, if the states were to exchange money between state lines would that fall under Interstate Commerce?  Does it count as Commerce?  I don't know what the legal/constitutional definition of Commerce is. 

Yeah, it's obviously not as clear cut as I wanted it to be earlier.

[zman]

There are a lot of things the feds are not suppose to do but they do anyway.  The constitution does always matter to some of them.